On a mission for music: one night in the London live scene
It’s a Friday night, and it’s freezing. That point between my neck and my back hurts, and the bags under my eyes scream a week’s worth of relentless laptop screens and the British winter’s utter lack of sun. “I’ve decided I want to go out,” I text my friends. I slam my computer shut and hit play on a playlist like I’m preparing for battle because that’s how it feels once you decide you’re in it for a big one. I’m 25, damn it, I live in London, one of the best cities in the world. I’m still young. I’m still cool. I still love music despite thinking about it quite literally every working hour. I have an invite to a show. I have a new coat I want to wear, and quite clearly, I have something to prove.
Or maybe it’s something to find? After a working week in the city spent doing nothing beyond carting between the office and home, London can feel barren. In my two years spent living here, I’ve realised that unless you go out and seek out the noise, the place will become deafeningly quiet and lonely around you. Unless you go riffling in the underbelly of the small venues, local bands and free ticket club nights, the city is all just Simmons and The O2. On this Friday, I decided to go find the noise and dance to it.
So I have my heeled boots on and a Negroni in a can in my hand on the overground. As the journey to the show takes 15 minutes door to door, I’m East London’s biggest fan. While bigging up your neighbourhood might feel like a cliché metropolitan behaviour, I truly believe that there is no greater place in the city, maybe even the country, for a music fan to live than right here. The week prior, with the same stagnant feeling sitting heavy in my Friday night gut, I left my front door, took approximately 16 steps to my right and landed at an album launch gig. Did I know the artist? No. Do I even remember the artist now? No. But I remember dancing. I think it unlocked something in me, and I think it’s going to be a pattern I continue – finding a gig, any gig, and planting myself there.
On this Friday night, however, that gig is not quite so unknown. Bill Ryder-Jones is launching his album at Rough Trade East. I say my name at the door, and the bouncer replies, “Ooo, you’re on the guest list”. It’s an encounter that would usually make me shy, but after that quickly vanished cocktail, it makes me feel, admittedly, powerful. On this Friday, I’ve decided I’m an adventurer or a spy, traversing the East London scene like the music journalist equivalent of Huckleberry Finn or any of the other literary adventurers that come up when you google that.
With my friend by my side, we slip into the familiar warmth of the record store-turned-venue and quickly catch up at the bar. “How was your week? Good. And you? Good”. Back to the mission.
But as Bill Ryder-Jones takes to the stage and my view is totally restricted by a shelving unit shifting Radiohead bestsellers, my spirit wanes. The sound that creeps around is beautiful. Sonically, the musician puts on a faultless performance. We’re treated to five moving tracks from his new album, Iechyd Da, stripped back to nothing but an acoustic guitar. In moments where the softer renditions falter, his charming voice calls out, “Yeah, this bit doesn’t really work acoustically,” and I laugh a genuine laugh to the bollard in front of me. As he turns to take requests from the crowd, his performance of ‘Don’t Be Scared, I Love You’ reunites me with an old favourite song I’d let go of.
I feel the need to assert again that Bill Ryder-Jones sounded great. But something in me was impatient for more. My feet couldn’t move for fear of my heels cutting through the pin-drop quiet. I finished my pint and then couldn’t move to get another. I love live music in all forms and tempos, but on this night, I want more. I want volume. I want to dance.
Filtering out with the rest of the crowd, my friend reads my mind; “Where should we go next?” Not to sound like the East London tourist board again, but in the heart of Brick Lane, the musical world was our oyster. We could go to Dream Bags, a bar with a basement venue that looks like Mars and echoes with drum beats. We could go to the Sebright Arms for whatever eclectic lineup they always have going on and then their infamous Friday night karaoke. The George Tavern offers much the same: an exciting lineup waiting to be discovered near enough every night of the year.
“Old Blue Last?” I offer up, taking in the chill of the wind and opting for the solution that’s a mere five-minute fast walk away, “Chase that gig up with another?”
“That’s the best bit about these Rough Trade shows,” my friend says on the walk, “you can go to another one right after.” By the time we arrive at Old Blue Last, the first act of the night is taking to the stage, and as good old-fashioned roaring indie booms out of their speakers, the impatient itch is finally scratched. We get pints and push to the front amidst the crowd of the band’s mates, where the best energy is always found at shows like this. The key is to dive in fully and assimilate. I know nothing of the group other than that they’re called World News, and I like what I hear as the drums pound and guitar riffs roll.
And there at that moment, three drinks in, watching this band with the floor of the first-floor venue threatening to cave in with the rattle of the noise, I find what I was looking for. I love live music. I love being in these rooms with my friends. I love letting my body move, guessing the rhythm as it goes. I’ll say it again. I love live music.
Admittedly, the next outfit were so bad they chased us out of the room and down into the main bar as I typed a note on my phone; “Black Country New Road launched a plague of a thousand terrible bands.” I didn’t come out to be edged by the beat-less drone of new post punk, so we leave and follow the mission onwards, catching a bus to The Lexington.
Into another of London’s buzziest music spots, this Kings Cross pub is an institution and, seemingly, on this Friday night, is the place to be. We’ve missed the gig by this point, sadly, as the 10pm curfew has long gone. But instead, in the basement, we’re treated to a night of indie DJs like we’re university freshers again.
I dance to Pulp’s ‘Babies’ as if the band are playing it for me live. I sing the best 2010s indie cuts and remember my first-ever gigs, wondering which of the shows I’ve seen lately and which new artists I witness might reach these dizzying heights of being played at some club night in ten years. You never know who will be the next big thing or what small venue gig you’ll be able to brag about eventually. So when another Friday rolls around and the stagnant feeling demands, I go out into the cold city. I’ll use that thought as a motivator again.
